"There is no pure form of feminism," says the "Intersectional" feminist online, only to proceed to tell everyone that the only acceptable form of feminism is "Intersectional Feminism" (IF). As I read the increasingly hostile messages targeted at those who don't agree with IF, calling them racists, bigots, "white women" (as if it's a bad thing in of itself), I think to myself, "Where have I seen this before."

And then it hits me - in the church.

​As a Christian feminist author I've engaged in numerous online discussions about equality in the church. The discussions usually begin civilly, but degenerate quickly into insults ("You're a Jezebel!" "God hates you!") followed by an insistence that I should mind my p's and q's and stay silent justbecause I'm a woman. Christian women don't have a right to question patriarchy.

No women do.

Since women have no right to question patriarchy, why do we suddenly see white men as the "allies" of women of color against white women, saying they want to give women of color the rights white women already enjoy? Just think about it. White men, who are reluctant to give any women equal rights (the wage gap still exists), are now advocating for women of color and telling white women to shut up? Who would come up with such an idea and call it "feminism"? We really don't have to look too far.

​Patriarchy doesn't tolerate the rebellion of those it seeks to subject.

White women have always been some of the most vocal advocates for women's rights simply because they have the means to do so. Economic privileges have given them a unique position to secure equal rights for women. They have the time and money to spend hours, months, and years advocating, and they have done so successfully. I observed this in my book, The Final Wave: Dismantling Patriarchy Through Freeing Feminism:

In the absence of leadership from Nightingale and Norton, the organizing of the women’s rights movement in England was left to Barbara Leigh Smith and her fiery feminist friends. Ms. Smith was a radical in every way, and her financial independence allowed her to break the norms of her society without having to fear financial repercussions (p. 32)

Without the heavy investment of white women into the movement during the early days, there would have been a vacuum of activity and eventually the whole movement would have fizzled out. There is a reason why the First Wave feminists are vilified. If people forget the history, they forget also why feminism was needed in the first place. They forget the role men had in the subjection of women.

This is the aim of the hijacking of feminism by "Intersectional Feminism."And it has succeeded.

Few people seem to remember coverture laws that made women civilly dead. They don't remember the long and arduous struggle to make the woman a legal person in the eyes of the law, to emancipate her from her childlike dependence of the man.

The women’s rights movement that Ms. Stone was to spearhead was part of this much larger movement that sought to humanize the existing laws that had previously dehumanized large portions of society. One of these laws was coverture.

The common law doctrine of coverture was the law of the land in both English and American societies well into the twentieth century although the slow dismantling began in the nineteenth century. According to this law a single woman was known as feme sole, a married woman was known as feme covert, and the law treated them differently due to their marital status.[1]

"To the feminists of nineteenth-century England the common law relating to the property of married women was one of the most basic, if not the most basic, of all the disabilities under which women suffered. By depriving married women of property the law deprived them of legal existence, of the rights and responsibilities of other citizens, and thus of self-respect. Since they had no property under their control, married women could not enter into contracts, nor could they sue and be sued. They could not carry on a business or trade, or could do so only with great difficulty. Married women could not be held liable for their actions, their husbands being legally responsible instead. Here the law might be as unjust to men as to women, for husbands were liable for their wives’ actions whether or not they had obtained property from them. From this it followed naturally that married women were subject to their husbands’ control of their persons as well as their property. In short, the law placed married women in the same category with criminals, lunatics, and minors as being legally incompetent and irresponsible."[2]

Thus the dismantling of the married woman’s property law became an even more urgently needed legal reform than gaining the vote as it reduced women to legal non-entities by virtue of marriage.[3] Unmarried women and widows could own property and create contracts, but married women were merged into their husbands in such a way that the two became one—and the husband was that one. Adding insult to injury, a single woman whose children were born out of wedlock had more rights to her children than a married woman, and a married woman had more rights to the personal property given to her by her friends (and even lovers!) than the property given to her by her husband. It makes no sense to us, but because of the law of coverture, a married woman had no separate legal existence from her husband and without a legal existence she couldn’t ownanything; everything a couple owned belonged to the husband by law. (p. 26-28)

[1] To the outside world, the wife was known as “Mrs. [insert husband’s name]” as she had no separate legal existence. Modern women who still relish the title “Mrs.” forget its origin and the severe legal disabilities that were associated with coverture.

IF tells us more than hundred years of feminist activity was completely meaningless, because it was done by white women, and all white women are said to be racist. A black woman on Twitter mentioned offhand that her entire framework of feminism constituted of exposing the racism of the First Wave. She said it without a hint of irony, which is just astonishing, since it was the First Wave that gave her the opportunity to speak about her findings; nineteenth century women weren't allowed to speak in public.

And this brings me back to my original thought on how much IF resembles complementarism (or hierarchical theology). Comps (shorthand for "complementarism") insist women have never been leaders in the church. When evidence is provided to the contrary, they say those women were heretics, not real Christians, for no real Christian woman would ever go against God's Word (compare this to IF advocates who say only those who agree with their beliefs are "real feminists.") All the important work done by feminists and Christian women (who were a huge part of the First Wave) is dismissed because of who they were.

​If this isn't misogyny, then what is?

It may sound as if I'm exaggerating, but anyone can test this in real life. When those who oppose the sexism found in the church and/or the rigid dogma of IF won't instantaneously shut up and "just listen" to how white women/descendants of Eve are the problem, the bullying begins. The amount of insults that are hurled makes Luther look civil in comparison. And all of this points to the undeniable fact that their entire ideology rests on the foundation of misogyny; their only aim is the continued subjection and silencing of women. Why else would these two groups act in the exact same way when confronted by the same group of people?

Since we are talking about feminism here, how is it possible that women went along with this hijacking of feminism? It's not that difficult to understand when we remember the centuries long conditioning that has convinced women that other women are the enemy and men are the saviors. We saw this with the "Mommy Wars" and the continuous pitting of women against each other (one male IF advocate tweeted, "You don't still believe in sisterhood, do you?"). Just as with all people groups who experience discrimination, patriarchy knows how to convince women to work against their own interests. If we say we won't, we are told there is something wrong with us, that we are the problem. And if we still don't agree, we are bullied into silence.

As women, we must refuse to be silenced by those who have hijacked feminism by recognizing that "Intersectional" feminism creates bullies. Instead of giving in, we need to stand up to them. It's what feminism is for.

Author

"Finding the truth is like looking for a needle in the haystack: it's easier if you use a magnet, but you need to know where to look or the magnet becomes useless. To find the truth we need to look for the "why" and not only at the "who," because the "why" explains the "who" in a way that the "who" cannot explain the "why." And when we find the truth, we find freedom." - Susanna Krizo